The Heat In Their Blood
by royalstandard
Summary: A Bamon oneshot set after Damon stays, saves Bonnie from the island, and brings her home


"Why did you stay for me? Why did you wait?"

"Because I knew Elena would need you. She'd just lost her brother, and she needed her best friend."

"But you hate me," Bonnie argued, lifting her arms just to drop them back to her sides in exasperation. "You've said so yourself. You'd do anything for Elena, but I don't matter. Sure, she needed her best friend, but she's got Caroline, she would have you, and she would have Stefan. We both know I don't really matter that much in the long run.

So I want to know why."

"Damn it, Bonnie! Why isn't it good enough? Why isn't believing I saved you for Elena's sake good enough?" Damon barked irritably. He didn't like second-guessing himself. He didn't like questioning his own motives.

"Because, ultimately, you don't do anything but what's good for Damon. So did you save me to impress her? Because she's already sired to you, she already loves you, so why should it matter? How does it benefit you?" she asked stubbornly. She knew him better than any of the rest of them. She could read him like a book, even when he thought he was a mystery, and it was all because she didn't feign to like him. She hated him just as he believed he hated her. He didn't have to prove himself to her or try to be something he wasn't. Bonnie saw him as Damon Salvatore: murderer, psychopath, asshole, arrogant, and so much more.

He loved Elena, but he felt as if he was in a constant struggle to impress her. He couldn't be a good guy like his brother. He could shut off his humanity, but that was the closest he came to being the 'good guy', and when he shut it off, he just turned into a soulless monster. That just defeated the purpose.

But Bonnie, no. She didn't love him. Perhaps she didn't hate him anymore, but he didn't believe she loved him. She just saw him as he was.

"I don't know how it benefits me, Bonnie!" he whined, his voice lilting in that characteristic way it had when he was irritated.

She set her jaw in that infuriating way of hers, and his blue eyes widened dangerously as he glared down at her. She glared boldly back up at him, not even afraid of him in the least. It agitated him, how she was always defying him. No one else would do that to him, not even Stefan. Stefan hated him at times, but they didn't argue like he did with Bonnie. She was irascible.

"So you saved me purely for Elena's benefit with no ulterior motive, and I have to accept that even though I don't believe it's true. Classic Damon logic," she snarked, shaking her head and sniffing derisively.

Anger swept over him, and he wished she would just let it go. He didn't want to question himself, but she forced him to, time and time again. With lightning fast speed, he pinned her back against the wall of the Salvatore boarding house. Bonnie gasped in surprise, the air knocked from her lungs even though Damon had subconsciously not crushed her against the wall. She noticed this in some deep secret part of her mind that knew he cared more than he let on, but she was too surprised by his mercurial shift in emotion to analyze his latent tenderness handling her.

His ice blue eyes flared with a myriad of emotions, characteristic to no one but Damon, as he glared down at her, holding her captive against the wall. She held his gaze and matched it with her own glare as her chest rose and fell with rapid, angry breaths.

"I don't know why I did it...for me," he answered, his honesty coming out with her as it always did, eventually. Involuntarily, his eyes flitted from her gaze to her chin and down her perfectly smooth neck to her chest where he could hear her heart beating rapidly. If he had a living heart, it would be beating as fast. He could see that heartbeat radiating through her neck, and one of his hands released her to touch her, fascinated.

"You admit you did it for you...not just for Elena," she pointed out, resisting the urge to flinch as his cool fingertips graced her neck. Strangely enough, the way he stared at her, so enraptured with the simplicity of her heart beat reverberating in her jugular vein, made her heart constrict and her thighs tighten. She hid it well as she continued to watch his face, refusing to give in to the confusing shift in the pit of her stomach.

"I did it for me..." he confirmed, his blue eyes rising from her neck back to her gaze as his fingers ran down the length of her neck and lightly traced across her collarbone.

His gaze was hot as he looked back up at her, and she swallowed heavily. She understood Damon in a way no one else did, maybe not even Stefan. They were all clouded by their love for him, but she saw him as irredeemable. She would never tell her friends, out of concern for their feelings, but she knew Damon didn't want to be redeemed. He was set in his ways and pleased being the 'bad boy' of the Salvatore brothers. That was how he protected himself.

And because of her inherent understanding of him, she knew exactly what he was thinking as he looked into her brown eyes. She didn't fight him as he came for what she knew he wanted.

The kiss was sudden and took her breath away even though she'd been expecting it. Her body reacted instantly, her chin turning up to kiss him back involuntarily. Her back arched slightly away from the wall, her hands clenching into fists as he held them captive over her head. His free hand ran down her neck, sending shivers down her spine, and circled around her ribcage, wrapping around her back to crush her against him.

She sucked in a pleased gasp of air when he moved his mouth from hers for a second, and she twisted the air with her mind, forcing him to release her hands. Instantly, her hands went to his black hair and she pressed herself to him as both of his hands went to her back. Sliding down her spine, his hands slid over her behind, hitching her knees up around his waist and turning her toward the couch.

She didn't feel anything but Damon as her back hit the couch and he showered her with kisses. It was all him and her, and her and him, and nothing else mattered. She would probably continue hating him later, but maybe this would change things. Maybe things had already changed without her, beyond the control of either of them.


End file.
